1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for gathering and processing data to support rating decisions in the adjudication of psychiatric disability requests.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of disability evaluation there are numerous approaches to assessment of basic or residual functioning. The generally accepted method has been to utilize a large battery of testing instruments to cover all aspects of the individual's functioning that could impact normal life, especially job performance. This testing material is often overlapping, redundant, or unnecessary. Mental health factors such as mood disorders and psychosis which affect the individual's functioning are evaluated independently as part of a diagnostic assessment. For example, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test (“MMPI”), Draw-a-Person test (“DAP”), Rorschach test, and/or other tests as well as an extensive clinical interview may be necessary to classify a diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (“DSM-IV”). However, with such instruments, the issue of motivation, adaptive capacities, or specific mental status questions dealing with memory function, cognitive processing, abstraction, and other mental functions are not specifically assessed or quantified in applicable fashion to the question of work ability.
Additionally, job performance assessments similarly do not answer these questions or those of diagnostic issues impacting work performance. Specific mental status instruments concentrate on one or another facet of mental functioning to the exclusion of motivational and adaptive abilities. For example, many frequently used tests of mental status focus primarily on cognitive abilities to exclude the limitations of dementia. Some instruments focus on specific conditions such as aphasia in brain injury as part of a neuropsychological battery to determine degree or type of impairment. They do not, however, focus on determining motivational and adaptive abilities, which are of importance to determining a disability evaluation especially as it relates to the workplace.